Is Apple Production Right for Your Land?
According to the UW-Extension, apples are the most widely planted fruit tree in Wisconsin. Who wouldn’t like to step out the door and pick apples from their own trees?
FARMER JOHN PLOWED UNDER
I am away from my desk attending a family reunion. To get to bucolic Monticello, Illinois, I have driven through countless miles of land that was once prairie and then small farms and is now an endless stretch of massive sterile mega-fields servicing agribusiness. While I am reconnecting with […]
ENJOY YOUR VEGETABLES. AVOID E. COLI
Remember 2006 when suddenly everyone was afraid to eat spinach because there were reports of contaminated greens in a couple of taco restaurant chains. It turned out to be contaminated iceberg lettuce that caused at least 276 cases of illness and 3 deaths. How much good produce had to be […]
100 PEPPERS YOU CAN GROW RIGHT NOW
Dave Baumler is my pepper guru. (see my previous posts on his exploits The Brave New World of Not So Hot Peppers and Peppers in History and in Your Garden ) He grows an amazing collection of peppers from around the world by starting them in his house and raising […]
GROWING A REGIONAL FOOD ECONOMY
One of the workshops at the Midwest Organic Farming Conference we attended a few weeks ago was called “Creating a Regional Food Economy in Our Backyard.” This is a topic Doug and I care deeply about, and it’s central to the plans we have for our future. We’re lucky. We […]
STILL VEGETARIAN AND STILL THANKFUL
The day after Thanksgiving, and I’m still thankful. I’m thankful for the Dane County Farmers Market, which moved indoors a few weeks ago and made our table groan yesterday. We have been able to feast on mostly local goodies for the past few years, since we started to tune into […]
MAKE YOUR GARDEN BED WITH A COMPOST COMFORTER
Composting is a rich and fertile topic, and there is always something more to learn. I got my most recent lesson at a presentation on Sheet Mulching by Kate Heiber-Cobb, a Permaculture Designer and founder of the Madison Area Permaculture Guild. The beauty of compost! Heiber-Cobb says that sheet mulching […]
OUR FARM THIS FALL
It’s been a hot, dry October. Odd to watch the leaves being blown off the trees by such balmy breezes. But fall is fall — and that means crazed squirrel time. Winter is coming, and there are things to do before the ground freezes. With Doug teaching biology at UW-Platteville […]
SEEDLESS GRAPES IN WISCONSIN? MAYBE.
I like dried fruit. It’s a great way to enjoy fruit all year long with minimal energy expenditure. Doug and I have been hoping that we will be able to grow seedless grapes on our south-facing slope, solar dry them and put some local raisins into our foodshed. Last night […]
CHILI PEPPERS IN HISTORY AND IN YOUR GARDEN
This has been a great summer for growing peppers in Wisconsin, and no one knows this better than Dr. David Baumler: by day — a post-doctoral researcher at the Genome Center of Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and by night and weekend — a master pepper gardener. Dr. Baumler spoke on […]
Digging in the Driftless 